


Enemy of My Enemy

by Thuri



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thuri/pseuds/Thuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The CIA can't let a telepath of Charles's power stay free. Erik can't let him stay prisoner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enemy of My Enemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [i_know_its_0ver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_know_its_0ver/gifts).



* * *

It's months before Charles lays eyes on Erik once more. Months spent relearning his own body, spent building his school. Months wondering if, in spite of it all, Erik might have been right. If there ever truly can be peaceful cohabitation with the humans. He knows better than most how violent the change-over can be when a species mutates, when it surpasses its brethren. Humanity is already fighting a losing battle, even before they're fully aware they are at war.

Most days, he tries to ignore that knowledge. He pushes it aside, concentrating instead on the school. There are always more children to find, to rescue. To bring into a world where they know they're not alone. The impetus to train them to control their powers has not lessened, but it is often surpassed by the need to teach them to come to peace with themselves. In recruiting, he gives priority to the runaways, the desperate, the mutants who are as bad off as Erik had been. He has failed his friend and lover. He will not fail again.

Time marches on, for he's found no one who can yet travel through it--or reset events that have already taken place. A part of him hopes he never will. The temptation would be too great. Better he never have to again face the choice he'd struggled with on that beach. The desire to wrench that bloody helmet from Erik's head and force him to stay. Force him to listen, to understand what he was proposing. Where his anger would lead.

There was no peace in revenge. No peace in taking life. His own hands were wet with the blood he'd spilled...and perhaps he should've told Erik so. Perhaps he should've made clear his meaning, that night. The night they'd played chess together, the night he'd found himself in Erik's room, the last night they'd made love. It seems much longer ago than it was. But that was another life. A life where he'd walked through the halls of his house, a life before the bullet, before the missiles.

A life where Erik had--much too briefly--been his alone.

* * *

Charles woke from fractured dreams, blinking away the afterimages in his mind. A sharp, stabbing pain burned behind his eyes, and he pressed his fingers against them, drawing a long, steadying breath. Almost unconsciously, he reached out, trying to assess the house around him.

All seemed well. The children slept, their dreams of tests and basketball games and simple worries. Hank was awake, working deep in his lab, the mathematics running through his mind a soothing litany. Alex and Sean slept, as well, and Charles let himself relax, slowly. Whatever had woken him, it wasn't centered here.

Which only left two minds, in all the world, familiar enough to have driven him from slumber. He stared up at the ceiling, fighting with himself against reaching out. Raven had asked him not to, the last time he'd contacted her. He was doing his best to give her time, give her space, despite the constant ache of her absence. But then he hadn't been half the brother to her he should've, hadn't been able to quiet her fears, her insecurities. Not like Erik had.

Erik. Even if he'd left the helmet off...Charles knew he shouldn't reach out. He'd thought it would be easy to resist, at first. He hadn't forgotten the feeling of that coin, pushing through skin, bone and brain, centimeter by centimeter. Never mind that it had been Shaw's brain, Charles had felt the man's pain as if it were his own. His pain, his fear, his death. And, worst of all, his twisted, terrible sense of pride in Erik and his actions.

And then after, when the bullet had hit, when his legs had gone nerveless beneath him, spilling him to the sand, when Erik had released him and walked away, disappearing...no. He hadn't thought he'd have much trouble keeping himself from reaching out to the man he'd hoped to spend a life with. Not after that.

Instead, the ache of Erik's absence had only grown deeper. Raven had once called herself Charles's only friend, and he'd been hard pressed not to agree. Erik had been his second. Now they were hundreds of miles away and allied against him through their own choice.

He had his students, but they were not friends. He had his work, with the school but it wasn't what he'd imagined, wasn't the teaching position at Oxford, wasn't the excitement of the CIA position he'd all too briefly held. It was...quiet, he supposed. He would train the children, they would grow, learn, and eventually go off to fight on their own, while he stayed here, in the house he'd grown to hate so as a child. Stayed, and did his best for them.

Shaking his head against the thoughts, the memories, he reached for the glass of water by the bed. His fingers fumbled in the dark, and the glass fell to the carpeted floor, its contents spilling. To get more would mean a struggle. Too much of one, even if he would've liked the drink, liked to take something for his head. But, like so many things now, it wasn't worth it.

Instead, he dropped his hand once more to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. And tried to let himself drift. To reach serenity.

What happened next he knew shouldn't have surprised him.

His mind drifted out, too full of memory, and where he would've expected a void, he instead touched Erik's mind. Not sleeping, not now. Awake. Distracted. But open. There. The familiar sense of him brought immediate tears to Charles's eyes. He pulled back, biting his lip. He couldn't. He might not have asked Erik's permission the first time, but he had no right now. None. Erik had declared himself against humanity...to steal his thoughts would be an act of aggression.

And to share them might tear Charles in two all over again.

* * *

Strength lay in numbers. Charles knew it well enough, though he'd never planned a war himself. If one were to raise an army of mutants, one would need to recruit. In recruiting, it would make sense to pick those most suited for combat.

In fact, it made _perfect_ sense. And yet a deep shock went through Charles, feeling Raven and Erik so near to him. He rolled into the small cafe cautiously, senses still alert for the young girl he'd come to save.

It seemed she no longer needed him to do so.

Charles tasted ashes on his tongue, allowing himself a moment of defeat as he felt the girl's mind change, as she accepted Erik's offer to join with him. A chance to strike back at those who had always feared and harmed her...he couldn't offer that. And his peace seemed poor comparison to a teenager, he knew.

That moment, his eyes closed, his mind turned inward, his defenses down proved to cost him greatly. Even as he pushed himself back outside, as he rolled over the threshold of the cafe, another's surprise spilled over him, cold and horrified.

"Charles!"

For a moment, Charles was tempted to keep going, to reach out and erase Raven's memory of seeing him. It would be the work of a moment to convince her she'd been mistaken, to make himself invisible in her eyes. But the pull to see his sister's face, to feel her mind, to not have to bloody _hide_ , if only for a few moments was simply too much. He turned his chair as she came running out of the cafe after him and smiled up at her, not having to make much of an effort. In spite of everything, it was _good_ to see her. "Raven, hello. You're looking well."

She was. Even disguised in the form she'd once held all the time, even with dawning horror and disbelief on her face, radiating from her mind, he could tell she was happy. He couldn't even bring himself to envy her--much. Not when he'd hoped all his life to feel that warmth from her, that sense of inner strength.

Even if it was overshadowed now with worry. She stared at him, mouth open, before falling to her knees on the sidewalk, hands hovering near his knees. He didn't have to reach for her mind to know she was afraid to touch him. "What...why didn't you _tell_ me?" she asked, tears in her eyes as she looked up at him.

Charles leaned forward, gathering her hands in both his own. He squeezed them gently, swallowing around the lump forming in his own throat. He'd missed her even more than he'd realized. "It's all right," he assured her softly, with a conviction he didn't feel. "I'm fine. I've...adapted," he added, a swell of wry amusement trying to twist his lips. But he held his smile steady for her. "It's good to see you."

"I shouldn't have left," Raven said, shaking her head as the tears escaped, slid down her cheeks one after the other. "I should have stayed with you. I _would_ have, if I'd _known_..."

"Which is why I didn't tell you," Charles pointed out, stroking a hand down her cheek, wiping the tears away. "You're doing what you want. What you believe in. That's much more important than pushing your insufferable old fart of an older brother about."

She laughed, though it was more than half sob, shaking her head. "Oh Charles...I've missed you. Even if you _are_ an old fart." Raven pulled herself to her feet, leaning in to hug him close. And, for a moment, everything felt as it should. Her familiar, beloved mind so close to his, wrapping him in her presence as well as her arms. Almost...almost he could believe nothing had changed.

"Mystique."

Raven pulled away, straightening her hair and jacket as Erik's voice rang out between them. Charles closed his eyes for just a second, steeling himself for the moment he'd known would someday come but for which he was not _ready_. "Hello, Erik."

"Charles," Erik returned, his face expressionless as he stared down at his former lover, blank eyes taking in the wheelchair, the meaning behind it. Charles had always had to look up at the other man, but never so far before. And though here, in public, he'd left off the helmet, Charles couldn't bring himself to reach out, to touch Erik's mind. To see what the other man thought of this, of what Charles had become.

But, as the metal of his chair shivered against his back, his arms, he thought perhaps he didn't have to. He drew a second, steadying breath, pulling the tatters of his dignity around him. He'd never again be what he once had, in either of their eyes, but he could at least chose how to present himself. "Seeing as my reason for coming here has already made her choice, I'll take my leave. Be well, both of you." He set his hands to his wheels, only to find them locked in place, the entire chair--or at least all of it that was made of metal--held in a firm grasp. _Erik. Please._

The resistance disappeared and he rolled himself away, barely able to resist looking back.

* * *

Erik watched Charles go, a deep, helpless rage burning in his breast. "Did you know?" he asked Raven flatly, not turning to face her. Not when he could still see Charles, when only a small measure of his power could pull the chair beneath the younger man back, make him stay. Keep him by Erik's side where he belonged.

"No," Raven whispered, tears in her voice. "I swear. I thought...Emma said he _recovered_."

So she had, the blond bitch. Maybe it had been her way of punishing him for Shaw. For her months of imprisonment. For his ability to resist her well used charms. Or maybe she was just that stupid. Whichever, he'd deal with her misinformation later.

Contemplating that was good. It gave the burn of his anger a direction, a focus. Something he needed. Without it...without it he'd be left with Charles. Charles, and what Erik had done to him.

He'd maimed the man he loved. The only one who'd broken through the barriers he'd erected as a child, the walls that'd protected him from the likes of Shaw and his ilk. But Charles had wrapped himself around Erik's heart and made him _care_. Had seen the darkest parts of his soul and not turned away. Had given him the brightest bits back, when he'd thought them lost forever.

And then the humans had driven them apart, had forced his hand...and had cost him Charles.

Charles, who was too kind, too naive. Who could hear the thoughts of men, could plumb their darkest depths and yet could not understand when they acted upon that darkness. He believed in the good in everyone even when it had long since been extinguished.

His misplaced trust in Erik's control of his own darkness had apparently cost him his legs. How long before that same easy trust cost him his life? Those children who'd stayed with him...they couldn't protect him. They knew less of the darkness of men's hearts than their teacher. How could they counter what the world might throw at Charles?

Erik clenched his jaw. Charles had trusted him. He had broken that trust once...not again. "Raven."

She started, looking up as he called her by the name he hadn't uttered in months. "Yes?"

"We're going to assemble a team. Carefully." Maybe Charles couldn't help seeing the best in everyone. Maybe he couldn't help trusting too easily. But Erik...Erik knew the darkness. And gladly would he march into the mouth of hell once more, if it meant Charles could keep his faith in the world.

She nodded slowly. "All right. What's the mission?"

"Keeping your fool brother alive."

* * *

Charles had expected there would be those that Erik recruited who would defect. Would want to chose another way, when they saw what "Magneto" had planned for them. By the same token, he expected he'd lose students of his own to Erik's chosen path.

Partly in hopes that Erik would welcome his foundlings with open arms, and partly because he wouldn't have had it in him to refuse them shelter, Charles had decided to welcome any possible defectors from Erik's team with no real questions asked. He might not always agree with Erik's methods but he wouldn't punish those who once had. Not when he sometimes thought he would've whole-heartedly joined the other man if he hadn't been able to feel and sense the minds of humans.

Hatred came from fear, fear from the unknown. And no one on Earth could remain unknown to Charles Xavier. Not for long. If only there were a way to share that insight, to show the world that--beneath the surface--humans and mutants wanted the same things. The same love, the same peace.

Thousands of years of human development hadn't hit on a solution for fear of the unknown, he knew. The likelihood that one disabled telepath would manage it was slim. So instead he managed what he could. He provided a home, a refuge, for some of the world's rejected. He taught tolerance, he taught understanding, he attempted to show his students they didn't need to fear.

And he took in Erik's former disciples, giving them a home and refuge of their own.

He touched their minds, their intentions as they arrived, though he wished it wasn't necessary. That he could trust Erik hadn't sent them with some other goal in mind. But each one wanted only to find a different path. Only a few months in Erik's band and Charles seemed to have received at least half of his recruits. While it worried him, to think what Erik might be doing to alienate them so quickly, he was glad to have them. With the few older mutants he'd recruited as teachers, the school was doing well.

He thought, much later, than he should've known it was too good to last.

Charles didn't often leave the school grounds, not if he could help it. While he'd felt trapped in his home as a child, it now provided a retreat from the outside world. From the looks he got, the pity in the minds of passersby. It hit him like a palpable wave, any time he ventured into public, no matter how carefully he built his shields. Someday he knew it wouldn't bother him, but he hadn't reached that point yet. He hadn't healed from that wound, even if the hole in his back had left only a long, clean scar behind.

Still, there were times he couldn't avoid going out. Finding new students, calming parents, putting out a myriad of small fires the older students never seemed to tire of. And it was on one such trip, returning after promising the local authorities--again--that the students would be confined to campus until such time as they'd learned their lesson, that they struck.

Charles rolled himself slowly down the sidewalk, trying to give himself leave to enjoy the late spring day, to do nothing but appreciate the warm breeze and sunny weather. Alex would arrive with the car soon enough, but until he did...Charles was on his own.

He couldn't help thinking he should've picked a different place to meet. He knew this park too well, had run its trails too often. Yet another thing now denied him, he thought ruefully, rubbing a hand over his wasted thigh, the cotton weave of his trousers smooth and warm against his palm.

He might as well have been touching someone else's leg for all he felt.

Shaking the thought away, Charles set his hands to his wheels once again, following the packed earthen path. There was no use in dwelling on what had been lost. He'd yet to find the mutation that could bring it back. Better instead to think on the teenagers now living in his once empty, quiet mansion. Teenagers determined to be as wild as they could, even if they were good kids at heart. The acceptance they found in his home seemed inevitably to end in joyrides and parties, if nothing worse. He'd have to find a better outlet for it, keep his word. Maybe another form of training...

Perhaps it was his distraction thinking about his students. Perhaps it was his physical exhaustion, dragging down on him after a full day in town, his arms and shoulders aching with the effort of moving himself. Perhaps he had become complacent after escaping notice for over six months.

Whatever the reason, he didn't sense the hostility aimed at him until it was too late.

He slammed to a rough stop, hands grabbing the back of his chair. Even as he raised his hand to his temple, more men poured out from the trees. "Get back," he said as calmly as he could, not at all certain he could erase himself from their awareness while the one behind him had hold of him. "I don't want to hurt you..."

"Not likely, _freak_ ," one of them scoffed, taking a step forward. Charles reached for him and he fell, screaming, his hands going to his skull.

But then another took his place and another. Charles reached out again, again...and then let out a cry of his own as he tipped, his chair jerked out from beneath him. He spilled to the hard dirt of the path, the impact knocking the breath out of him.

Charles wheezed painfully, trying to draw air into his lungs, trying to _focus_ , to reach out and stop the hands grabbing at him. To _think_ through the pain and shock of it all.

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" came another mocking voice, almost inaudible under the rushing in his ears. A large hand descended and the first breath Charles managed carried with it the sickly sweet scent of chloroform.

His last memory was of a relief from stinging pain as the soaked rag clamped over his face.

* * *

At least as far as lairs went, Erik was forced to admit Shaw's taste had been excellent. His empire had continued in his absence and thanks to Raven's talents his many assets had been easily signed over. That included the estate they currently occupied. While not as palatial as Charles's childhood home, it was more luxury than Erik had ever been accustomed to before. But more importantly, it was within two hundred miles of Westchester County.

Just within Charles's range, should he reach out. Not that Erik expected him to. But if he did, Erik would be close enough to hear. For now.

Erik settled himself behind his desk, starring at the scarred wooden surface. After years of solitary searching, years spent following leads, spent hunting down the man who'd destroyed the child he'd been, who'd created the man he'd become, he could not settle into this new role. It was Charles's desire to be a leader, to usher the mutants into a brighter future. Erik would've been happy to follow him...if only Charles had the stomach for what was necessary.

But with all he'd seen, Charles was still an innocent and nothing would change that. Erik couldn't dwell on what might have been between them. Not now. Not when he had a revolution to plan, had his own people to look after.

"You're very quiet today," Raven murmured as she came into the room, carrying a tray with a bowl of steaming soup. "What're you thinking about?"

Raven held a special place for him, with this new brotherhood he'd put together. She was the only one who'd known him before. The only one who really knew Charles...and possibly the only other person on the planet who loved him as much as Erik did. And in the months since the beach, he'd watched her blossom into a self-assured, strong young woman. One her earlier self would never have recognized.

Still, it didn't mean she was privy to his every thought. "The future," he replied, half-raising the glass she handed him. "Thank you."

"You missed dinner," she said, by way of explanation, no doubt. And censure. "Again. The others...wondered."

"And what did you tell them?" he asked, raising one eyebrow at her. For all that Emma had expected to take a place at his right hand, it was Raven he trusted most, Raven who was his second in command. And Raven who acted as liaison when it came to explaining his motives and orders to the rest of the Brotherhood.

"Not to worry so much," she replied, her lips turning up in a smile as she tossed her red hair back over her shoulder. "We had word from the school," she added, settling on the edge of his desk as he ate, crossing one long blue leg over the other, examining her toes, her tone all too deliberately nonchalant. "Charles seems well."

"Good," Erik replied, taking another sip of soup, determined not to say anything more. Not even to her.

"I'm surprised, actually," Raven went on. He caught her watching him from the corner of her eye. "He hated that house, growing up...couldn't wait to escape. I never would've thought he'd be content there."

"Hated..." Erik snapped his mouth shut. He wasn't going to ask. Charles had said nothing about the house, during the week they'd spent there, or his feelings for it. And anyway, it didn't matter now. They were on opposite sides of this conflict, Erik's extra precautions or not.

"Mmm, yeah," Raven went on, as if he'd asked anyway. "His stepfather wasn't...very nice. I was lucky he never noticed me. After Charles's mother drank herself to death, he got worse...and that Cain was even worse to Charles. I think it's why he cheated to graduate early. So he could get out."

Erik's brow furrowed, but he didn't respond, just listened as she went on, describing a childhood quite different from the one Erik had pictured for his friend. When he'd seen the near castle, he'd assumed Charles had been pampered, spoiled. Had never known hardship. To know now he'd been ignored, unwanted, even abused...

How could he still believe in the goodness of mankind? How?

Lost in his thoughts, Erik barely noticed when the door opened again until Emma stepped through and cleared her throat. "I thought I might find you both here," she said, looking Raven up and down, a knowing smirk on her face. To her credit, Raven drew herself up and glared right back.

"What can I do for you, Miss Frost?" Erik asked, sitting back to take a sip from his glass, letting it dangle negligently from his fingers.

"Regan's reported in," Emma replied, just as off-hand, "with a bit of information." She yawned, looking rather bored. "The telepath didn't return from his trip into town today. No one's seen him for hours, and their tame beast can't locate him. Thought you might like to know."

* * *

Emma may have had her own agenda, but Erik had to give her credit. She spent very little time gloating before telling him what Regan and the others had discovered, and what her own powers had been able to add to that. There'd been little of the abductors themselves, only a single man left to keep watch. But she'd gleaned enough from him.

"The telepath should have erased their memories of him," she said, her lips pressed together in a moue of disapproval. "But I suppose he's had other things on his mind. In any case, the CIA decided someone who could pluck state secrets out of the air was too dangerous to stay free. They're taking him to a test facility."

"How'd they even take him?" Raven asked, her forehead furrowed. "He should've been able to hide himself, to stop them in their tracks..."

Erik barely listened as Emma replied, his mind instead returning to a conversation he'd had with Charles in that week the children had spent training. A conversation of limits and challenges. Charles had reluctantly confessed he could hold only one person at a time and that the concentration required to do so was too much to allow him to pull his disappearing act in the same moment. He'd have to release the one to do the other.

Something he'd told Erik he intended to work on, now that there seemed to be need for him to hone his combat skills. But then...he'd had other things to learn in the past few months, hadn't he?

Firmly, Erik squashed the thought, pushing it down with the fear, the worry, the guilt all simmering within his chest. All he allowed himself was a cold, implacable rage. It fueled his power, had given him strength enough to track down his enemies and determination enough to never give in. Those who had touched Charles would not live long enough to regret their folly.

"You can track him," he interrupted, throwing the girls off guard. But Emma nodded, slowly.

"If we get close enough, yes," she replied. "His mind is...unique."

"Good." Erik stood. He'd not been idle during their days with the CIA, and he'd pinpointed every facility, lab and hideout they had on the North Atlantic coast. There were only so many places they would feel comfortable taking Charles...and none of them would withstand his assault. "Then we leave immediately."

"Wouldn't it be easier to leave him..."

Emma got no further before Erik's hand closed around her throat, cutting off her protest. "Misguided or not, we leave none of our brothers in their hands. And him least of all."

He released her, turning away without a glance. "Mystique. Tell Azazel to meet us downstairs. We have work to do."

He strode from the room, knowing Raven would obey his commands, that she no more wanted to leave her brother in the enemy's power than he. Oh Charles, what have you gotten yourself into this time? Why didn't you listen to me?

But though Erik cast the thought as widely as he could, there came no answer.

* * *

Every available advantage didn't lessen the magnitude of the task before them. Raven knew more about a telepath's powers than most, and she knew what they were up against. Even if Emma'd had some clue of which direction his abductors had taken, even if she'd been close enough to know...finding Charles was still worse than a needle in a haystack. He could be anywhere in the United States...how was Emma going to find one mind among 180 million?

And what if they'd taken him out of the country? What hope did they have then? Even if Hank had created a new Cerebro, he wasn't likely to let Emma waltz in and use it. No, the students at the school weren't likely to ask for their help, even if they were better equipped to mount a rescue mission.

Erik didn't seem likely to let any obstacle stand in his way, however. Less than a full hour after Emma's announcement, he'd had Azazel bouncing her about, listening for Charles's mind, for any clue as to his whereabouts.

Despite their best efforts, they'd returned near dawn with nothing. A few hints, but nothing more. A few agents who knew the abduction--labeled necessary for National Security--was going to take place, but not what anyone intended to do with the telepath once they had him.

The next day and the day after brought nothing more. Hints and possibilities, but whoever had planned the mission must've gone through to oversee it personally. Those who were left didn't know enough to be useful. Emma had shrugged, asking Erik again if it was really that important.

Even Raven had been frightened by the flat, emotionless way their leader had wrapped the poker around her wrists and hauled her up toward the ceiling, feet dangling as she cursed. And Erik had held her there, silent, one eyebrow raised in question, until she'd retracted the words and apologized.

The lack of results had led to this. Infiltrating the CIA's headquarters. They'd discovered when helping them before that the intelligence agency was addicted to their paperwork. Impossible secrets were typed up, inserted into files and left there to be read. If you could get access to them.

Something Raven herself had no trouble doing.

It had been child's play, in fact, in many ways reminiscent of the pranks she'd once played with Charles before he'd gotten too stuffy. She and Emma had simply waited outside the building, Emma reading each suit as they exited until she found one with the appropriate clearance. Once she had, she and Raven lured him into the car and the White Queen stripped his mind of every possible detail.

He hadn't known Charles's whereabouts, but his security access would grant him viewing of the files that would. Emma sent him to sleep with a fantasy of having two women at once before turning back to her accomplice. "He knows enough," she told Raven. "I can give you everything you'll need...and follow you in, at least partway."

"Then let's do this," Raven agreed, taking on the suit's shape even as her mind filled with his memories. She had to reluctantly admit she and Emma made a good team, as good or better as she and Charles. With her ability to take another's shape and Emma's to read their minds, they could convincingly imitate anyone in the world.

Raven knew she and Charles could've had so much more fun, if only he'd allowed it.

Pushing the thought away, Raven blew Emma a kiss and pulled herself out of the car, adjusting her tie slightly. She took a deep breath, let the impressions and memories of Robert Collins rise to the surface and headed back inside the headquarters building with a smile and a nod at the door man.

It still took two weeks of late nights, two weeks of returning empty handed to Erik, two weeks of flipping through folders in the near dark before she found it.

A slim, innocuous manila folder. It wasn't in Charles's personal file--which, along with Erik's and her own, was now a great deal thinner than it had been before she'd perused it--but in a drawer marked "Projects". Projects which Raven quickly wished she'd never heard of. Faced with actual mutants, the CIA had lost no time in fulfilling Erik's fears. Her skin crawled as she read some of the plans, the hopes for "study."

She stole what she could, though she didn't know how much good it would do. At the least, she copied everything for Erik. Better to know what the enemy was doing...and humanity were quickly proving themselves willing to be that enemy, weren't they?

The last folder held the information they'd searched for. An underground test facility in upstate New York, one not on the map Erik had made months ago when the search first started. Specially designed with mutants in mind, facilities to test helpless children, to unlock their powers and see what kind of weapons could be made of them...

Raven growled, flipping through the pages, a growl that turned to a snarl at the last page. Subject Mutant X telepath acquired, a picture of her brother unconscious on a bed, an IV in his arm, bruises and cuts across his face.

They had Charles. But now...now the Brotherhood had them.

She left immediately, already calling out for Emma.

The CIA wouldn't know what hit them.

* * *

"There. There's only one guard."

Erik accepted the binoculars from Raven, looking where she pointed. A side entrance, hidden and barely visible. Much better for their planned assault than the massive doors nearer the front. He didn't want to announce their presence too widely, not until he had Charles safe.

After that...he smiled grimly.

"All right," he said, glancing to the sides where his team waited for the word. "Mystique, you and Azazel get to the children, get them out." Raven's discovery that it wasn't just Charles being held in the facility, but a number of young mutants as well had only firmed Erik's resolve. He would do all he could to prevent another Shaw, another child ruined by the so-called experiments of a mad man. "Miss Frost, keep track of everyone."

"And you?" Emma asked, raising an eyebrow. As if she didn't know. As if Charles's name wasn't etched across the inside of his mind.

"I'll let you know when I've found him," he replied, rising to his feet. "Have the bird ready to fly."

Everyone murmured their assent and they moved out quickly enough. The guard at the door offered little resistance, not once Erik drew his dog tags tight around his throat, before smashing his face with with butt of his own gun. The man dropped to the ground without uttering so much as a whimper.

It was a start.

Erik jerked his head at Azazel, who made the guard disappear, setting him down hopefully far from Emma and the helicopter waiting to take them away once more. The metal of the door yielded easily to his power and Raven quickly took on the soldier's appearance, preceding Erik into the base.

"Good luck," she murmured in a stranger's voice, giving him a quick, tight smile. He nodded, touching his forehead in a half salute. They parted ways, Erik moving through the corridors toward the infirmary area found in the plans.

It would have been faster, he knew, to have Azazel jump him directly to Charles's location. But the CIA knew there was at least one teleporter out there. Erik couldn't risk Charles's life on the chance they'd prepared for Azazel's arrival. No. Better to take the longer way himself. No one would stand against him, not with the myriad ways mankind incorporated metal into their lives. It sang all around him, just waiting to bend to his will, a willing ally against those keeping Charles from him.

A soldier appeared down the hall and Erik choked his air off with his dogtags, leaving him gasping and slowly suffocating behind him. A suit turned the corner in front of him and Erik _pulled_ , rebar shooting out from the concrete wall, wrapping the man in its embrace.

Deeper and deeper he made his way into the complex, distantly feeling the touch of Emma's mind as she kept track of the others. It felt strange, to know she was there, could touch his thoughts. But he wouldn't have worn the blocking helmet now if his life had depended on it.

Not when he knew Charles was ahead, when he needed every tool at his disposal to bring his friend, his lover, back to him. If the touch of his mind would make the difference, then gladly would Erik give it to him.

Raven had reached the children, still undetected, by the time he found the space where Charles was held. Everything was ready...all he needed was to get the man free of this place, and they could destroy it. And those who'd dared.

A guard on either side of Charles's door, Erik noted as he reached out, feeling the shapes of the metal they wore. Smiling grimly, he reached out, gripping the guns they carried with his power. Two swift movements later and they collapsed, knocked unconscious by their own weapons. He strode forward, stepped over them, and opened the door to Charles's room.

The telepath lay on a hospital bed, beeping monitors surrounding him, tubes and wires attached to his white skin. Erik stepped forward, his throat closing as he took in the sight of his friend. So small, so pale. So _still_.

His vision blurred as he laid one hand on Charles's upturned wrist, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "Oh, Charles. Oh, my _friend_..."

One tear fell, one tear he allowed himself. He blinked, and blinked again, already assessing what he must do. Charles was much too thin; he would be even easier to carry than Erik had thought. Steeling himself, he reached out to free Charles of the tangle of wires and tubes that held him prisoner.

Even as he gently, carefully withdrew the IV from his former lover's arm, he was interrupted. A doctor by his coat and look came bursting in the door. "What do you think you're..argh!" The words cut off, as Erik flicked a scalpel into the man. The soldiers he hadn't killed, but this man, this man who'd hurt his Charles...he would receive no such mercy.

He wasn't the last who discovered Erik's presence, but the others died as easily. He let none of them break his concentration, until he threw off the last of Charles's bonds, lifting the man into his arms, cradling the slight weight of him against his chest. "I'm here, my friend," he murmured with voice and thought, trying to wrap Charles in his presence. "I'm here."

There was no response, just the soft rise and fall of Charles's chest. Erik pushed down his disappointment, and reached for Emma. "I have him."

An alarm sounded distantly, running feet pounding in the hallway outside. Erik straightened, keeping his hold on Charles as the first of the soldiers appeared in the ruined doorway. But even as he brought his gun to bear, Azazel appeared in a puff of smoke and wind.

"Gentlemen," Erik said, with a mocking grin, as the other mutant took hold of his arm and returned him to the hillside.

Erik carried Charles quickly to the copter as Azazel disappeared and reappeared, over and over, frightened children gathering around Raven as they were freed. He knew he still had the base to attend to, knew he should move back, make certain of his team. But to have Charles in his arms again, after nearly a year...after months of uncertainty in his whereabouts...it was almost too much.

He traced his fingers over Charles's cheek, tracing the thin line of a new scar across it, brushing back his too long hair, reaching desperately for the warmth, the gentle touch of the other mutant's mind. Only silence answered him.

"He's heavily sedated," Emma said, her voice an unwelcome intrusion, though it was softer than he'd heard it before. Gentler. "He's not aware of anything right now...but it should wear off."

Erik looked up, surprised by the compassion in her face, the trace of tears in her eyes. So the diamond lady could cry...interesting. She smirked, wiping her face. "Don't get used to it. C'mon, let's make the bastards pay before we get out of here."

Erik allowed himself one last gentle stroke of Charles's hair before nodding, a savage smile spreading across his face. "Let's," he agreed, sliding down from the copter.

Raven waved to him, from the back of the small pack of children she was herding forward. "We got the last of them," she said, when she came closer. "How...how is he?"

"Unconscious," Erik replied, squeezing her hand. "But alive. Emma says he'll wake later. Get them settled."

"Yes, sir," Raven replied, snapping off a salute as she grinned. Erik didn't need telepathy to sense the relief rolling off her in waves.

He returned to the top of the hill, looking down on the base that had hidden Charles so long. He could easily see the main entrance from this vantage point...see it and break it open. His mind full of Charles, he reached out. Reached out, anchored by his place between rage and serenity. His peace. His Charles.

Metal released a tortured scream, great doors bursting open as the pull against them overcame their massive strength. Erik allowed himself a momentary flash of satisfaction as the humans swarmed like ants, their hill upset by some greater power. They might have hidden Charles from him until now...but no longer.

A hard jerk and their guns flew from their hands, turning on their owners, the weapons impacting against soft flesh. He reached again and again, pulling the humans free of their secret hideaway, dropping them before it.

It would be easy to kill them. Easy to snuff out their lives, destroy them for what they'd done. Almost...almost he did. But memories--the sound of Charles's scream on the beach, the sight of him falling--stayed Erik's hand. Besides. He needn't kill them all to accomplish his goal here.

No. Better they _live_. Live, witness this, and report back to their superiors.

With the men of the CIA base and the soldiers who'd protected them watching, Erik let his power loose on the empty underground facility. He called it forth, poured it out, losing himself in the rush and _joy_ of it, the incredible light Charles had gifted him that day nearly a year ago.

It seemed right he use it now, for him.

The ground shuddered beneath his feet, heaving, a quake of the earth near no fault line as he pulled, gripped the very fiber of the facility in his hands and twisted.

A deep cracking groan sounded through the air, accompanied by the shrieks of tortured iron, until the valley before him swelled upward, pulled up like a balloon of earth and grass. It bulged, grew, and finally _split_ , hundreds of pounds of metal flying up through the rents in the earth. Tools, building materials, chairs, desks, ornaments, guns, grenades, scientific instruments....they all flew upward, gathering in an impossible ball above the remains of the facility.

Erik laughed aloud, unable to help himself as he held them, _fused_ them, a red hot ball of metal floating above the now sunken valley. With a final, almost negligent toss of his hand, he dropped it, leaving the multicolored globe as a testament of what would happen to those who imprisoned his people.

Likely it wouldn't work. Likely they'd come again.

He'd be ready for them.

Turning away from the smoking ruin behind him, Erik climbed into the copter, taking Charles into his lap as Emma and Azazel initiated take off. They rose above the earth, headed for freedom.

And, as they did, impossibly blue eyes blinked open, meeting his own. For a long moment, they held only deep confusion. Until, at last, a spark of recognition.

 _Erik?_

* * *

Awareness and time slipped out of all knowing. Charles drifted, quiet, alone, wrapped in thick, muffling silence. Confused impressions sometimes came to him--fear, movement, a frantic voice in his head--before they dissipated again, leaving him once more in a soft cloud of silence.

Sometimes there'd be voices for longer, asking him questions through the haze, badgering him, sharp shocks of pain amongst the confusion and grey numbness. Questions that he wouldn't answer, though the answers seemed safe enough. But in the brief moments he could sense the minds around him, he knew there was no safety here.

After the questions, the pain, sleep would come again, drawing him away. He grew to welcome her embrace, to seek out her escape into deep, dreamless unconsciousness. She would protect him, with her muffling blanket of silence and distance, and nothing else could enter.

Until something did.

A niggling, pulling thought at the edge of his mind. A presence, a pinprick of light against the fog surrounding him. Charles turned from it, at first, turned to the dark, the safety...but the light only grew. Ever brighter, ever closer.

Gradually the light pulsed deeper, faster, until it became a mind. A mind, and a name.

Erik.

Erik's mind. Erik was here, with him.

Real or not, Charles couldn't resist the call of his love, no more than he could've stopped the sunrise. The fog that'd kept him safe shredded, tore under the regard, until it lifted from his eyes completely. He blinked, blinked again, and saw the man's face, so close.

Too heavy-limbed to move, to speak, he managed only a soft thought of recognition, before a healthy sleep came for him at last, granting him true rest.

Sometime much later, Charles felt himself wake again. But even as he tensed, expecting the harsh words of the guards, the oily, insincere care of the doctor who'd poked him again and again, he felt a familiar presence. Slowly his muscles relaxed and he dared to open his eyes.

"Hello, Professor." Hank grinned at him, reaching one blue furred arm across his chest, checking on something out of Charles's line of sight. "Good to have you back with us."

"Good...good to be here," Charles managed, his voice rough with disuse as he glanced around the room. Part of the lower levels of the mansion, which they'd been converting into headquarters for the team...but why was he here? "What...?"

"It's a long story," Hank replied, rising to his feet and patting Charles's hand awkwardly. "But you're safe, now...and we have some new recruits, and..."

Charles swallowed, trying to think. There'd been...hadn't he seen...but no. No, it wasn't possible. Was it? "And?" he prompted, when Hank trailed off again.

"And he's trying to decide how to explain me," came the soft, well loved voice Charles had been almost certain he'd never hear again. He turned his head, not daring to hope, not daring to reach out and find it was a ruse, another hallucination brought on by the men who'd held him.

But Erik stood there, stood there tall and real, his light burning like a beacon in Charles's mind. "Erik?" he whispered, struggling up to his elbow, cursing the weakness in his arms, the heavy weight of his nerveless legs.

Erik crossed the room in a few long strides, his hand taking Charles's as he eased the telepath back down onto the bed. "Easy, Charles. Don't hurt yourself."

Charles blinked, holding back a gasp as Erik wrapped their fingers together and his open mind all but overwhelmed him, images of himself on a hospital bed, of soldiers knocked unconscious, of a valley rent asunder with an impossibly huge metal sphere in the middle of it flashing behind his eyes. And overlaying it all, a sense of deep anger, deep fear, and deeper relief. "Erik, what did you do?" he whispered, struggling to contain himself, draw his mind back from the other man's. But his hard won control seemed to have deserted him, at least temporarily, and he couldn't block Erik out.

"I came for you," Erik replied, his free hand sliding back through Charles's hair, gentling away the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes. "Just as I always will, my friend."

"Erik, I..." Before Charles could finish the thought, a thought he'd not even fully formed, Erik cut it off with the gentle pressure of his lips. And, God help him, Charles let him, pressing back into the kiss.

But with the kiss came a surety, a commitment from Erik, a wave of feeling and images in his mind. Of the two of them working together, protecting their children...and building a life. Keeping the world safe from the likes of Shaw, of the men who'd held Charles.

He pulled away, not certain the thoughts were his own or Erik's. "I..." he murmured again, blinking stupidly up at the man he loved, the man he hadn't kissed since the morning of that fateful day.

"You need rest," Erik said gently, squeezing his hand again. "I'll be here when you wake. With your permission, of course," he added, a slight smile about his lips.

"My home is yours," Charles replied immediately, still trying to muddle his way through the impossibilities of the situation. "I...thank you, Erik. I owe you my life." Of that much, he was certain. His mind might be a maelstrom of thought and confusion, but that one fact he could hold to. Erik had saved him.

"And I owe you my own," Erik returned, bringing Charles's hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against the palm. "Rest."

Charles wanted to protest, but sleep pulled at him even as he tried. Little as he now wanted to fall into her arms, she drew him away once more.

* * *

Erik sat where he was, watching Charles sleep, their fingers still entwined. A soft, embarrassed throat clearing caught his attention, and he looked up to see Hank hovering uncertainly in the doorway. "I...are you two...finished?"

Erik resisted the urge to smirk. His position here in Charles's home was far from secure, though the students were all glad enough to have their Professor back that they hadn't spoken out against him. Much. Still, he had no wish to antagonize them. "He's resting again," he said, softly, inclining his head.

Hank nodded, coming in again, once more glancing at the monitors about Charles's bed. Monitors that told him much more than they told Erik. "Good...it's best for him. How...how did he seem?" he asked, carefully, Erik thought. Just as unsure as to the etiquette, no doubt.

"Confused, exhausted," beautiful, alive, "what could be expected." He released Charles's hand slowly, stroking the smaller man's fingers as they curled loosely on the blankets. "He seems to be himself," he added, the words sounding as a challenge even to his own ears. But Charles had to be himself, to recover from this. He would accept no less.

"That's a good sign," Hank replied, running a startlingly red tongue over his sharp teeth. It was a gesture so completely Hank in the still unfamiliar setting of his furred body that Erik couldn't--quite--suppress a smile. He had missed the children, he realized, almost as much as Charles. Missed their family. "His physical injuries really aren't that bad...but he's lost weight and muscle mass. Expected in the legs, of course, but the rest..." He shook his head, looking down at the bed and Charles's pale form. "Damn."

"What?" Erik asked, familiar frustration with Hank's roundabout way of approaching a subject laced with sharper worry. This wasn't a modification to a suit, this was Charles.

"Oh, sorry," Hank replied, straightening. "Just...he's going to be too weak to push his own chair for a while. Which is why I installed the motor, really, but he still won't be able to get himself in and out of it, of his bed...he'll need help. And he hates that," he added, with a soft sigh.

Erik closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to see the blame on Hank's face. If it hadn't been for him, for that errant bullet, for his own loss of control...Charles wouldn't have needed that help. Wouldn't have had to struggle to come to terms with it on his own. "You haven't found a healer, either, then?" he asked, softly.

Hank frowned, looking over at him. "Either?"

Erik's lips quirked, but he met the other man's eyes steadily enough. "I've been looking. To fix this."

Hank held his gaze for a moment, before shaking his head, softly. "We haven't. A few mutants who can heal themselves, but none that can do it for another. He says he doesn't mind, that it's not important, not when he can travel with his mind, but..."

Erik swallowed, looking down at Charles again, drawing the blanket back from one pale calf. Atrophy had set in, leaving it much thinner than he remembered, the once softly rounded muscle now wasted away. He laid his hand gently against it, feeling the same warmth, same prickle of hair against his palm as before. But he knew, even had Charles been awake, he wouldn't have known the touch. "But he used to run," Erik finished for the other man, remembering the light in Charles's eyes, when he'd raced Hank about the grounds, the laughing smiles as he let his body go...gone, now.

"Yeah," Hank sighed. He stayed silent, for a long moment, before visibly steeling himself. "Are you going to stay?" he asked abruptly, not meeting Erik's eyes.

Erik shrugged, adjusting the blanket over Charles again, trying to collect his thoughts. "I think...that's up to him," he said at last, watching Charles breathe, slowly, in and out. "But if he'll have me...yes. Someone has to keep an eye on all of you."

"Good enough," Hank replied, clapping Erik on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over with his strength. "If he stays stable, we can move him to his room in the morning. And don't forget to sleep yourself." So saying, he exited the room, leaving Erik alone with Charles for the first time since he'd arrived at the mansion, holding the professor in his arms.

He watched Hank go, before allowing himself a small smile, taking Charles's hand in both his own once more. "You've done well with him," he murmured, softly, tracing Charles's fingers, the lines of his palm, allowing himself to follow the minute and almost imperceptible traces of iron flowing through his veins. To feel him, alive and real beside him once more. "With all of them. My own students could use that confidence...that serenity."

Sighing, he reached down to gently push Charles's hair back from his face. "So could I. I still want you by my side..."

He fell silent, words lost in the storm of his emotions as he held the other man's hand, hope and despair rising in equal measure. He would not willingly leave...but would Charles want him to stay?

* * *

Even before he opened his eyes, Charles knew he was in his own room. Everything from the smell to the energy of the room was familiar. Safe in a way he wouldn't have expected when he'd been a child in this house. But that was very much a different lifetime to the one he led now, and his memories of this room, one in which he'd never slept as a youngster, were different.

In this room, he'd made love to Erik, held him through the night, found a peace and a selfish joy he'd never experienced before or after. Bittersweet though that might now be, it was enough to sustain him.

Lying there, still on the edge of sleep, Charles let himself reach out. Slowly, very slowly, as he exercised his powers for the first time in much too long, he extended his mind. Only to draw back, abruptly, eyes snapping open on a silent gasp.

His mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. Erik sat but a few feet away, his long limbs folded into Charles's former favorite armchair, his large hands supporting a book in his lap. He wasn't reading, though, but sleeping, his head resting against his chest, his hair fallen across his forehead. Charles's fingers nearly itched with the desire to reach out and smooth it back for him.

A gesture all too familiar for their current state, though. Wasn't it? Perhaps not, if Erik was still here. If Charles's hazy memory of waking in the lower levels, or Erik's lips against his own was correct. But if it was...what did it mean? Had Erik come back to him? For how long? Was he willing to give up fighting the humans?

And if not, then why had he stayed? Charles couldn't regret Erik's timely rescue, but he couldn't help wondering what lay behind it, now. Behind it, and his continued presence in the house.

Charles sighed, softly, setting his hands against his mattress and pushing, wincing at the weakness of his arms. He would have to work on that, first of all...regain his strength as quickly as he could. He let out a soft grunt of frustration, as he hauled himself up.

Quiet as he'd been, it was enough to wake Erik. The other man started, his eyes coming open, the book falling from his hands. He paused in the act of reaching for it, gaze meeting Charles's. "Good afternoon," he said, softly, sinking slowly back in his chair. "Did you rest well?"

Charles relaxed slowly back against his headboard, nodding hesitantly. "Yes, I believe so..." He could feel the fragility of this peace between them, the innocuous conversation a thin veneer over a murky pit. It wouldn't stand up long to direct assault...and so he held back his questions. For now.

"Good," Erik replied, leaning back in his chair, hands folded around each other. "The students will be glad to hear it. You've had them worried."

"So I would imagine," Charles murmured slowly, adjusting his pillows behind his back with a ridiculous struggle, one with which he was desperately glad Erik did not try to help. He finally pushed them into a decent array and settled again.

And while the last thing he wanted was to watch Erik's face grow cold, or to cause him to pull that blasted helmet over his head and make himself disappear to Charles's mind, Charles still couldn't bring himself to pretend everything was as it used to be. "Erik..."

Erik huffed a small, humorless laugh. "It isn't in you to let things simply be, is it my friend?"

Charles smiled reluctantly. "I suppose it is not," he agreed ruefully. "But it seems much has happened, while I was...sleeping." A delicate way to describe the timeless period of grey torture, but he'd no intention of dwelling on it long enough to find another. Erik didn't need to know what it had been like. "I have catching up to do."

"And the bulk of it can wait," Erik replied gently, but firmly. "For now, your children are well. Whatever else they may have learned from you, this place remains unknown."

Charles slumped, his eyes closing in relief. It had been his one fear, though he'd thought he'd kept the knowledge to himself. Knowing he had, that the questions, the drugs, the pain hadn't forced it from him was a greater gift even than he'd expected. "That is very good news. I had feared..." He trailed off. Even after nearly a year apart, speaking openly to Erik seemed so natural. He would have to watch his words carefully...at least until he knew the other man's intentions.

"You didn't betray them, Charles," Erik assured him quietly. "Something I'm sure frustrated them," he added, shaking his head.

"It did," Charles whispered as memories of increased pain, angry voices coming from a mental void threatened to overwhelm him. He shuddered, pushing the thoughts away. "Hank mentioned new students?"

"Charles..." Erik leaned forward, half reaching out.

Charles shook his head, sharply. He didn't want to speak of it, not yet. More than likely not ever...it could go and live with the long buried memories of what his step-father and step-brother had done, and lie there, untouched. "It's okay, Erik. I'm fine."

"You are not," Erik returned, frowning at Charles as he dropped his hand. They stared at each other for a long moment, Erik's care and concern lashing against Charles's defenses. But he held firm against them, as he always had.

Erik sighed, finally. "Have it your way, then. The CIA had gathered children just showing their powers to experiment on. Raven found evidence they wanted to turn them into living weapons, using whatever means necessary. We brought them here."

"Good God..." Charles shuddered at the words, the horror of it. Moria's face flashed before his eyes, her kindness, her understanding. She had been even more unique amongst her fellows than he'd thought. And erasing her memory, necessary thought it had been, had probably done him no favors with those men. Striker would've been waiting for any excuse, he knew, afraid of the "freaks" with whom he'd been forced to work.

And for Erik to have discovered more humans doing to other children what Shaw had done to him... "Did you...what happened, at the facility? When you arrived?" he asked, as delicately as he could.

"You mean did I massacre the place?" Erik asked, raising an eyebrow.

Damn. Not nearly delicate enough. "Erik, I just..."

"Relax, Charles," Erik replied, tapping his temple lightly with one finger. "Go ahead. Find out for yourself."

Charles hesitated only a moment before raising his fingers to his own temple, letting his eyes close as he reached for Erik's mind.

The shock of recognition that passed through him almost broke his concentration. It had been so long since Erik had invited him in, so long since he'd let himself sink into Erik's awareness, surround himself in the presence of the man he loved. It felt natural, it felt right. It felt like coming home.

After only a moment of letting himself simply feel Erik, he reached for the man's memories, going back to--had it really been two weeks since his rescue?--the hidden base.

Images and emotions washed over him, the impressions, sensations and decisions Erik had experienced all laid out before him. He gasped at the sight of himself on the white hospital bed, so wasted and still. He felt the slight weight of himself in Erik's arms and he saw Erik destroy the base.

But aside from a few quick deaths as he'd been freeing Charles, Erik hadn't killed. He'd spared the lives of most the men at the base, even knowing what their superiors had done.

Charles withdrew, slowly, blinking as he disengaged his mind from Erik's. "You risked quite a lot for me," he murmured, the echoes of Erik's long search for him still reverberating through his memory.

"I have no interest in letting the humans take advantage of your naive arrogance, my friend," Erik replied, his lips twitching slightly.

Charles couldn't resist a smile of his own in answer to the wry amusement nearly radiating off the other man. He relaxed back against his pillows, running a hand back through his too-long hair. "You left them quite the warning," he said, again seeing the multi-hued globe of metal Erik had created.

"It seemed appropriate," Erik replied with a shrug. "The threat of force can be just as effective as force itself...if they know you're willing to use it."

Charles nodded, slowly, knowing it was one of the differences between them. The thought of using that force, causing that pain--pain he could feel as clearly as if it were his own--filled him with horror. "With some luck, it will be enough."

"For now," Erik amended quietly. Charles wanted to rail at him for bringing reality into the room, their reunion. For reminding him things were _not_ what they had been, before. But he couldn't deny the truth of Erik's words. Humanity was running scared, fighting against the unknown...and he was no longer so naive as to think a few acts of good will would bring them all around. Not now.

"Then we must all prepare for when it is not," he said, as firmly as he could. "Until then, I have my students, and you have your..."

Erik shook his head, a slight flush rising in his cheeks. "I had hoped..." He paused, and cleared his throat. "You are vulnerable here, Charles. You and your students. I have already sent some of my own to keep watch, but they couldn't prevent what happened."

Charles raised an eyebrow, then chuckled, feeling Erik's rueful embarrassment. "I had wondered why so many of your recruits so quickly defected. I suppose Miss Frost blocked the truth in their minds?"

"Gleefully," Erik confirmed, a smile tugging at his lips. "She's an... _interesting_ woman."

"Of that I have no doubts," Charles observed, still deeply touched Erik had so carefully kept an eye on him. Even if, as usual, his methods left a bit to be desired. "But your spies are now exposed...what next, Erik?"

Erik took a deep breath. "Charles...there are things on which we disagree, and probably always will. But despite that, I believe we both _do_ want the same thing. Safety for our kind. The ability to live our lives without judgement or interference. There are many ways to accomplish those goals, but one things is sure. There will always be those who are opposed to them. Those who will not hesitate to act. To attack."

"What you say is true, my friend," Charles agreed quietly, resisting the urge to read Erik. Not yet. He was building to his point, and Charles wouldn't steal it ahead of time. "But..."

"Please, Charles," Erik said, raising one hand to forestall further protest. "I don't intend to destroy them before they attack. They are too many, we are too few and their time is limited. But neither will I let them take and torture us in their fear."

"Nor will I," Charles murmured, shuddering slightly. Perhaps, before his imprisonment, he would've advised another course. But now...no. He'd let no one go through that. All the empathy in the world hadn't truly prepared him for experiencing it himself.

"Then, Charles...why not work together?" Erik asked gently. "Not to rule this earth, but to create a place for ourselves within it. To be ready, when their time ends. I've read your thesis. I've heard you talk. You know it's coming just as well as I do."

Charles swallowed, letting himself reach out, read Erik. His words, while different than those spoken on the beach, still held enough of the same rhetoric that he again needed more. Needed to see what lay _behind_ them.

But while on the beach Erik had been a closed empty void, here he was open. And he meant what he said. His thoughts of the future were of the two of them working together, training the mutants they found, teaching them to use and control their powers. Teaching them to defend themselves, to find peace with themselves.

Erik would not let the camps happen again. Would not let his people be taken, imprisoned, slaughtered. He'd been a child when the Nazis had come for him. He was no longer a child, and no one would destroy his new family.

Charles pulled back, meeting Erik's eyes. He drew a deep breath, steadying himself. Erik's image of family now included Charles, Raven...and Charles knew Erik would do whatever it took to protect them. _Him._ Charles's own mother had never felt the same and the heady sense of possessive belonging brought tears to his eyes.

He swallowed again. "Running this school is really too much a job for one person," he offered, answering Erik's thoughts rather than his words. "And you've always been better at teaching them to accept themselves..."

Erik smiled, his eyes damp as he slid forward, taking Charles's hand is both his own. "Are you certain?"

Charles didn't even hesitate. "I am, Erik." He smiled, tears spilling over as Erik brought his hands to his lips. "I want you by my side."

* * *

Repairing the damage done on the Caribbean beach took time. Even as Erik returned to the mansion, as he brought his own recruits with him, there were those who'd been with Charles from the start who wondered if perhaps their Professor had lost his mind.

Alex, in particular, had confronted Erik not long after his return, demanding to know what he thought he was doing, why he was there. Charles wasn't certain what they'd said--no more than he was of what Erik told Sean, told Hank--but after the young man had actually embraced Erik roughly, and admitted he was glad to have him back.

As was Charles. Having his sister and his lover once more under his roof was an unexpected delight. They each took their old rooms, still untouched from the day they'd left, and began to settle into life at the school. Charles did his best to give them time and space, but couldn't hold back the unexpected shocks of joy that went through him, feeling their minds so near.

He recovered quickly from his own ordeal, helped--to his surprise--by Miss Frost. She proved to be much more sensitive than her diamond exterior implied, and they worked together--Charles teaching her the psychological healing techniques he'd developed, and she using them. On him, more than once, and to great effect. She was quickly becoming an asset to the school, as well, helping the children train without fear of hurting her.

Charles turned over some of his responsibilities to her, after they'd shared several long afternoons in each other's minds. He trusted her, having learned what she'd been through, helping where he could. And she, in turn, seemed to lose some of her icy exterior when given a place with those like her, who treated her as an equal. To Shaw she'd been a decoration and a tool, nothing more. Charles could sense she'd never been valued for herself, first, and he'd vowed to help fix that.

Then there was Raven. Confident, beautiful, loving Raven. His sister had blossomed and matured in the year they'd spent apart, and Charles found him enjoying every moment in her presence. They'd taken to walking together in the gardens most afternoons, as he healed, first with her pushing him, and then with him pushing himself as she walked beside him. They talked, of everything and nothing. Of their childhoods, of their time apart, of the future. They relearned each other, as adults, and Charles found her to be an even more amazing young woman than he'd ever dreamed. He was, he decided, beyond lucky to call himself her brother, and told her so in no uncertain terms.

As for Erik...he trained. He taught the children, helped them come to terms with themselves. He slipped back into life in the mansion, but not as if he'd never left. Charles was ever aware of his presence, no matter where he was on the grounds, though they saw each other sometimes but once a day.

That time, for at least an hour or two after dinner, was sacred. They adjourned to his study, poured themselves a glass of something, and played chess. At first, as Charles recovered, as Erik found his place again, the conversation could be as much a battle as the game, carefully plotted, skillfully woven. Point and counterpoint, parry and thrust, as they negotiated the landmines between them, the differences and similarities, and where they could agree. Charles knew they had to all but begin their friendship again, to try and move beyond what had happened before.

But Erik's bedroom still lay across the hall from his. And it was Erik who heard him screaming in the dark, when nightmares overcame him.

* * *

 _Silence. Overwhelming, overpowering silence. It pressed down all around him, smothered him. He strained and strained and strained...but there was nothing._

 _He was alone._

Erik woke with a start, silent screams echoing through his mind. He shook his head, shook off the nightmare, only to find the screams persisted, the crushing loneliness and fear refusing to retreat.

Realization came over him all at once. Charles.

He hesitated only a moment before throwing the blankets back and pushing himself to his feet. Charles had soothed his own nightmares, before...it would only be fair to the same for him now.

The other man's door was locked, but a brief tug on the tumblers allowed Erik's access. He crossed through the sitting room to Charles's bedroom, fighting off waves of crushing despair and fear as he went.

Finally, he reached the other man's side, found him thrashing about, pleading in half coherent mumbles, though of course his legs remained still and immobile beneath the blankets. Erik swallowed had and reached out, taking Charles's hands in his own. Carefully, he raised the slender white fingers of Charles's left hand to his temple, thinking as loudly as he could.

 _You're not alone. You're safe, Charles. I'm here._

Between one breath and the next, the oppressive terror disappeared. Charles gasped, waking all at once, his eyes wide as he stared up at Erik. "Er-Erik..."

Pounding footsteps interrupted him as Raven burst into the room, her gold eyes wide. "Charles, it's all...oh!"

Erik couldn't quite keep back a smile at the pleased surprise on her face. She smiled in return, looking between her brother and her mentor. "I'll let everyone know you're okay, Charles," she said, nodding at him. She left, winking at Erik as she went.

Charles blinked after her, before looking up at Erik again. "I seem to have missed something rather important," he murmured, half to himself.

Erik coughed, releasing his hold on Charles's hands. "You were having a nightmare, Charles. And...sharing it. Or at least the associated emotions."

Erik felt the featherlight caress of Charles's mind against his own as the telepath confirmed his words. He groaned, softly, and collapsed back against the pillows, running a hand through his sweat dampened hair. "I am sorry, my friend," he said quietly, turning his face away, haunted eyes staring past Erik toward the darkened window. "You don't need your sleep disturbed...and neither do the children. Go, rest. I will..."

"Keep yourself from sleep?" Erik guessed. He may not be telepathic, but he knew Charles well enough, time apart or no. "Drink or drug yourself into a stupor? I have tried them all, Charles. Nothing prevented the nightmares. Not until you. Until your mind touched mine."

Charles closed his eyes, a breath of humorless laughter escaping him. "And yet my mind is what betrays me now. I am sorry for waking you, Erik. Return to your rest."

Had Charles always been such a martyr, Erik wondered, or had he changed since the beach, since his abduction? He couldn't know, but he wouldn't stand for it.

He stood, crossing to the other side of Charles's ridiculously large bed and settled down on it. He stretched, allowing himself a yawn. "All right."

"Erik, what are you doing?" Charles asked, surprise, suspicion and hope equally balanced in his sleep roughened voice.

"Resting," Erik replied simply, sliding under the blankets. He concentrated on projecting his simple pleasure in being in Charles's bed, his willingness to wait out Charles's stubborn insistence that he was fine. "And making certain you do the same."

"Erik, there's no need for you to stay..." But the relief nearly pouring off Charles gave lie to his words and Erik settled himself more comfortably.

"There's no need for me to leave, either," he pointed out, working his shoulder blades into the mattress, making it quite clear he wasn't leaving. "Get some sleep, Charles. I'll be right here."

Whether it was that reassurance or if Charles simply dreamed no more that night, Erik wasn't certain. But their sleep remained undisturbed.

* * *

Admiration and wistful longing woke Charles sometime in the gray dawn. The emotions bathed him like the warm light of the rising sun. Almost without meaning to, he reached out to the source, turning to the attention as a flower would to the light.

Erik's familiar presence enfolded him and for a moment he saw himself through the other man's eyes. Pale, dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced than usual, hair in a rumpled mess. But the regard in which Erik held him bled through, changing the thin, almost sickly Englishman in his bed into a thing of cherished beauty.

A tear seeped from beneath Charles's eyelid as he drew his awareness back into his own head. To know how the other man saw him, how he appeared in his eyes, even after everything... "Oh _Erik_..."

Erik smoothed away the tear with a gentle touch against his cheek. "I would scold you for snooping, but I imagine my thoughts were all too loud."

Charles opened his eyes, raising his hand to hold Erik's against his cheek. He turned his face into the touch, placing a soft, secret kiss against the other man's palm. "They are returned," he murmured, releasing Erik's hand. He felt his cheeks warming as a soft flush suffused them. Erik had slowly found his place at the school in the past few weeks with everyone...everyone but Charles.

The telepath knew Erik's feelings--the other man made no secret of them--but they had not kissed since he'd woken, let alone done more. And so much had changed...could Erik truly still want him in that way?

A shadow passed over Erik's face and he leaned in, fitting his mouth over Charles's, tongue pressing inside even as his thoughts battered at his defenses, half-coherent reassurances and protests of love, attraction, desire filling his mind even as Erik's presence filled his senses.

Charles broke the kiss with a soft, laughing gasp. "Are you reading _my_ mind now?" he asked, certain his blush had grown deeper and finding it hard to care. Not when Erik looked at him like he was a banquet set before a starving man.

"Your face, my friend," Erik corrected, his fingers again coming up to trace Charles's features. "One needn't have your talents to know your thoughts. You're an open book."

"One written in braille, it would appear," Charles replied breathlessly as Erik's fingertips caressed him in soft, fleeting touches that aroused as much as they reassured. "Erik..."

"I want you, Charles," Erik interrupted, giving voice to the marked desire in his mind. "More than I have wanted anything in my life. Nothing has, or will, change that."

Charles couldn't help glancing down. Down at his withered legs, at the tented rise of his blankets. His body had reacted, aroused by Erik's actions, his thoughts...a reaction he couldn't feel below the waist. It flushed his chest, hardened his nipples, made already sensitive skin even more so...but the hardness between his thighs might as well have belonged to another.

Erik followed his gaze, brow furrowing, then clearing as Charles gave him a helpless shrug. "Ah," he breathed softly, running a gentle hand back through Charles's hair.

"I can still..." Charles wriggled his fingers, trying to smile. "You wouldn't know it was...different. That I couldn't...that things had changed..." he trailed off, as Erik frowned.

"All the time you've spent digging about in my mind," he said, sitting slowly up and pushing the blankets away from them both, uncovering them to the pale light, "all the things you've shown me, and you believe that's what I would want? A shadow, a shade of you?"

Charles opened his mouth, then closed it once more, feeling horribly exposed though he was still clad in his soft silk pajamas. "I..."

"I never meant for this," Erik said gently, laying a hand on Charles's thigh, touching him where so few had since the beach. "I would take the moment back if I could. But Charles..." He shook his head, meeting Charles's eyes, his own full of compassion. Compassion, but none of the pity Charles had so grown to hate. "Neither will I let it come between us. I, of all people, understand the scars life can inflict. I will not abandon you for for yours any more than you have abandoned me for mine."

Charles blinked as his eyes filled. "Erik..."

"Battered we may be, Charles," Erik murmured, sliding his hand up. Up Charles's thigh, his hip, until the shocking warmth of his rough hand slid under Charles's shirt, crossed the line of lost sensation and caressed his side. "But broken we are not."

Charles arched into the touch, his head falling back, his mouth opening in a soft gasp. Erik's touch against the bare skin of his belly sent shivers through him, caused a flare of arousal deeper than he'd felt in over a year. "Sh-show me?"

"With pleasure," Erik murmured, once again pressing his lips to Charles's.

And, in the moments that followed, the meeting of bodies and minds, Charles at last found his own serenity.

* * *


End file.
